9 Comments

Reckless indeed! His plan is flawed and will only hurt the economy and create more hardship on the masses. He and all his bureaucrat mates will be fine, but Naoki Average will suffer immense financial hardship if this goon is allowed to flood the economy with money. The J-Gov needs to cut taxes and promote spending if there is any chance of recovering. However, their general idea is exactly the opposite and it is the same ideals that created this mess in the first place. It's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It is just not gonna work!

It's also interesting to see how spineless Abe is. He has had a bit of negative feedback about his ideas and is no back tracking with as much double-Dutch as he can spurt. He does not have the character to be the next PM of Japan and if he does he will only become a puppet for the right-wing Ishihara coalition. It's all doom and gloom for Japan!

Disillusioned - couldn,t agree with you more mate.
I,m becoming quite disillusioned myself about Japan,s future direction ...there just doesn,t appear to be much hope that anything will change for the better here in short to medium term.

Everyone else is doing it so why not Japan seesm to be the thinking. Except Japan has been doing it for 20 years and more. The money is running out and now, with the advent of trade deficits, so is the economic credibility.

Serrano - Taiyo no To is dissolved and a member of Ishin no Kai now. And to answer your question, Komeito (the Soka Gakkai Party) looks likely to get about 4-8% of the vote, maybe more than Ishin and retain current third place. And if you want more choices, there are 17 parties again now with the governor of Shiga forming a new party.

Japan probably has among the most diverse representation of small parties of any country in the world.

However, what is absolutely clear is that the next government will be center right, based around Abe as PM and the LDP.

The good news is that the LDP will not do anything the BOJ or Ministry of Finance thinks is a bad idea. They do as they are told - and don't worry about them feeling pressure from anything they say before the election. Government under the LDP will run essentially almost the same as it does now. Tax boosts locked in, slow restarting of nuclear reactors, as DPJ is committed to, will probably proceed with the TPP as part of their commitment to fixing the US alliance.

I'm pretty sure Abe's talk of BOJ intervention is bluster to scare the markets into lowering the yen. Keidanren, which has been begging for a lower yen, is playing along here - heaven forbid they should appear happy at attempts to manipulate the currency to their benefit.

Don't know, the coalition centering around the governor of Shiga sounds as if it will pick up steam with "No Nuke" as their main moto with Ozawa pulling the strings in the back as producer. At least their message is the most clearest and thought to be the most potent in the otherwise murky speeches the other three had made.

I also believe Watanabe of the Party for you(Minna no to) would join this party since their political standing much more closer.